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Foul-Mouthed 'Modern Family' Tot: Too Much or True to Life?

Kids say the bleep-est things! Parent groups are up in arms about an episode of 'Modern Family' in which a 2-year-old drops the f-bomb — but experts say the toddler's potty-mouth problem isn't actually that jaw-dropping. What do you think?

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THURSDAY, Jan. 19, 2012 — Just days after winning the Golden Globe for best comedy, ABC’s Modern Family is in the headlines again — but this time for controversy, not kudos.

Parent groups and anti-indecency advocates are crying foul (language) over last night’s episode of the hit sitcom, which featured a potty-mouthed toddler repeatedly dropping the f-bomb during a wedding in which she’s the flower girl. The word was bleeped out during broadcast — and, had it not been, all anyone would have heard was “fudge,” which is what directors told the young actress who plays the girl to say during filming — but critics at the Parents Television Council (PTC) say the story line was “in poor taste” and should never have aired in the first place.

“The more we see and hear this kind of language on television, the more acceptable and common it will become in the real world,” Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education for the PTC, told Fox 411. “It’s not suitable language for a child that young in the real world, and it’s not suitable language for a child that young on television, either.”

Suitable or not, however, profanity use among toddlers does happen. In fact, psych experts and linguistics specialists say it’s common — normal, even — for children as young as 2 or 3 to swear.

Timothy Jay, PhD, a psychologist who studies psycholinguistics and obscenities at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, is something of an expert on the subject of kids and cursing: He’s written two books, Cursing in America and Why We Curse, and he has a decades-spanning dataset of swear words that teachers, day care workers, and other adults have reported hearing from children. He also released a study in 2010 showing that toddlers start cussing pretty much as soon as they start talking.

In the beginning, at least, “little kids are like language vacuum cleaners,” Jay explained. They take in whatever words they come across, usually via the people around them. “Television really has nothing to do with it. We don’t learn how to swear from television…. We learn how to swear from our siblings, from our parents, from the backyard.”

Were you upset by the show’s f-bomb? Tell us in the comments section below